5 Times Five Scared Adrian
by Achlois
Summary: Because everyone with half a brain cell knew that Five was the scariest of them all. Complete.


**5 Times Five Scared Adrian**

 _i. bubba_

Adrian hadn't been on the Raza for very long the first time it was under siege. To make a long story short, he ended up in the belly of the ship with an unconscious Three. The two of them were both tied to chairs, sitting back-to-back with their arms bound at their sides. Adrian came to first, and Three followed soon thereafter, awaking with a sharp head jerk that nearly tipped them over.

"Shit!" yelled the man suddenly, as he became more aware.

"We're under attack." Adrian said. Three wasn't listening to him, though. He kept muttering mostly to himself, chanting _not again_ under his breath.

"Three?" he asked, timidly. "Are you hurt?"

" _Why does this keep happening to me?!_ "

Adrian didn't know what he was talking about, but there was no time to ask as the large steel doors slid open, revealing one of the invaders: A beefy man with a tattoo sleeve on his right arm and a short, triangular beard. He trudged over carrying a sinister looking knife.

"Boone." His voice was a deep baritone. He had an accent, although Adrian couldn't tell which. "It is time you payed for your sins."

He punched Three several times in the face. When he pulled out the knife, Adrian panicked. "Wait!" he shouted. The man turned his attention to him, and his stomach dropped.

"Think before you kill him! He's got a bounty on his head worth thousands, but only if he's alive. If he's dead he's worth half of that. You look like a smart man. Doesn't it make more sense not to kill him?"

"I don't care about any bounty!" cried the man. "I want revenge for his crimes against my father!" Three, with a bloody nose, gave an annoyed huff.

"You too, huh? Well, let me tell you, buddy. You're not the first person looking to get revenge on me. So what did I do this time, huh?"

The man stared at him with hate-filled eyes. "When I was a boy-"

Except that he never got to finish his story, because at that moment there was a deafening _bang_ , followed by a wet _slosh_ as his insides splattered across their faces. The body sank to the floor, revealing Five, holding the most massive gun that Adrian had ever seen. It was almost as big as she was.

"Hey guys," she said, with a smile a bit too wide considering she was standing in human intestines. "Need a hand?"

Adrian, shaking and covered in blood, (oh, God, so much blood) could only gape at her.

"Hey kid!" greeted Three cheerfully. "You found Bubba!"

 _i_ _i. a late night encounter_

He heard the thud at four in the morning. He was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and listening to music on his phone when the sound interrupts his wandering thoughts and makes him instantly alert. It was coming from outside his door.

So, he stood clutching the nearest weapon (a pen) and silently praying to every deity he knew to please don't let him be murdered in his night robe like some asshole in a bad horror movie, because he was too young and too pretty to be dead. Okay. Well. The lack of responses on his dating profile might with him on that last one, but still. Twenty two was damn young and there were still so many places he hadn't seen and so many songs he hadn't played. There was another thud and he heard something else. A whimper.

Cautiously, he opened the door. It was just Five, dressed in her pajamas. He watched, thoroughly creeped out as she mumbled something incoherent under her breath and proceeded to walk face first into the wall. She remained motionless on the floor for a moment. He approached her slowly. In the heavy shadows of the hallway, he could see that her eyes were wide open and holy shit, that image was going to be permanently seared into his brain.

Tentatively, he tapped her shoulder. She flinched in her sleep, curled on the floor and saying jumbled words like, "they're coming" and "his hands are cold".

It was then that Adrian decided he had enough nightmare fuel to last him for at least a month, thank you very much. He had to wake her up before she did something dangerous like give herself a concussion or accidentally stab everyone on board. Shaking her gently, he whispered, "Five. Hey, hey. Wake up". Except that it wasn't gently enough, because she whimpered some more and said, "get away," in a terrified, childish voice. Adrian's heart, which had previously been beating rapidly in fear, (because seriously, she looked like something out of _The Ring_ ) broke for her. He knew that she couldn't have ended up on a place like the Raza due to happy circumstances. He wondered what ghosts from her past haunted her at night.

"Shh, I'm not going to hurt you. Here-"

Careful not to touch her, he placed a bud in her ear and pressed play on his phone, allowing the classic music of his childhood to lull her into a peaceful, and hopefully immobile, rest.

He carried her back to her room.

 _iii._ _brain hacking_

On a sunny Tuesday morning Adrian entered the mess hall to find it mostly empty. He wasn't surprised; Two was busy running a thousand security checks on the Android, Six was arguing with the colonists, Three was preparing his armoury for the next invasion, and Solara was doing whatever Solara did. Probably running a marathon somewhere, because that woman had no off switch, nor concept of the phrase "sleeping in".

Five was already sitting at the table eating her breakfast. The previous day had been a typical one, filled with hostile intruders and near death experiences. She looked exhausted. He had a large purple bruise on his forehead. He was nursing a minor concussion from when Ishida Ryo had slammed him into a wall of craters. Somehow, Five didn't have a scratch on her, although she was uncharacteristically resigned. Still, when she caught his eye she smiled weakly and he smiled back while pouring two cups of coffee. She took the mug, poured in a frankly alarming amount of sugar, and handed him a package of freeze dried fruit in return. He took it gratefully and slid into the chair beside her.

"Hey," she greeted. "How's your head?"

"Okay," he answered, struggling to open the bag. Then, with more concern, "How are you feeling? Any trouble sleeping?"

"Nah." There was a mischievous glint in her eyes. "You're new, but I'm practically a Raza veteran. I'm used to these kind of things."

"I don't doubt it." He shook his head, thinking back to the strange events the day before and how impressively calm she had been. She had saved all of their asses, and Adrian had a feeling that it was not her first time doing so. They would be lost without her.

"Hacking the Android. Crazy. Hey-" He stumbled as the plastic bag suddenly burst open, spilling its contents onto his lap. Picking up a piece of what appeared to be mango and popping it into his mouth, he asked,

"Whatever happened to that guy, anyway?"

Adrian shivered as Five's expression darkened into a cold, emotionless mask.

"I used the helmet's cognitive connection to infiltrate his brain and trap him within his subconscious, making him a prisoner in his own mind."

He choked.

" _Jesus Christ-"_

 _v. the rescue mission_

They stopped on Eros-A12, a tourist planet. Adrian waited for Five outside the movie theater so that they could watch _Star Wars 36_. Ten minutes went by, then fifteen, then a half hour. Soon the movie had started, and there was still no sign of the green haired girl. It wouldn't be the first time he had been stood up, although being abandoned by a seventeen year old on a _No-Two-I-Promise-It's-Not-A-Real-Date_ date was a new low for him.

But no-Five was his friend. He thought of the way her face had lit up when he showed her the tickets. With a small sense of dread slowly creeping its way up his neck, he called the others to see if they had seen her. They hadn't. She wasn't on the ship, either. At this point, a crease appeared on Two's forehead. She was worried, which meant that they should all be worried.

When Alicia Reynaud's face came onto the screen, demanding the blink drive in exchange for Five's life, Adrian felt a different kind of fear. The rocks inside his stomach melted and then hardened into armour around his heart, making him strong.

"I know a guy that can sneak us onto the compound." He says.

By the time they get to Five, gagged and groggy in the back room, Adrian has had to blackmail three different people, effectively erasing them from his list of "connections". It's worth it, though, once Solara busts open the door and she blinks at them, healthy and beautiful and _alive_.

He hadn't been able to kill Reynaud like he should have. Instead it was Two who put the bullet between her eyes. (Ultimately useless, since it turned out to be another clone.) But Five still calls him a badass when they're back on the marauder, eyes dancing as she leaned her head against his shoulder and lets sleep take her.

Not even Three's raised eyebrow or Two's suspicious stare can discourage him after that. Five called him a badass. And if she said it then it must be true, because everyone with half a brain cell knew that Five was the scariest of them all.

 _vi. kiss_

Adrian had been living on the Raza for four months. In that time he had battled time travelers, broke into an ultra-high security treasury, blew up an Ishida fighter jet, and narrowly escaped execution. Twice. At any rate, he was becoming accustom to fear. He might not have nerves of steel, like his friends did, but he liked to think that his experiences on the Raza were making him braver. However, when the others reluctantly filed out of the med bay, leaving Five to rest, she suddenly grabbed his arm and mouthed _stay_ , and Adrian felt his stomach lurch. Under the piercing gaze of her blue eyes, he reverted back to the stammering, unsure man he was on that day in the mining colony.

Feet rooted to the floor, he asked, "Yes?" His voice came out wrong, like he had rocks in the back of his throat. She stared up at him as if searching for something.

"I just wanted to thank you. Two told me what you did."

"I didn't do anything."

"That's not true."

"It is, though. I'm not-I'm not like you. Brave, I mean. I'm really more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy." He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I don't belong on this ship, honestly."

To his surprise, Five just rolled her eyes at him good-naturedly.

"That's not true, either. We have enough reckless people on this ship, we need more people like you."

"People like me." He echoed, a small smile playing on his face. "And what am I like?"

"Someone with a good heart who tries way too hard. Someone I've gotten used to having around." There was kindness in her eyes. Adrian suddenly wished he could see himself as she saw him. Then he would be a hundred feet tall. Again, she said,

"You saved my life. Thank you, Adrian."

He opened his mouth, but stopped short when she suddenly tilted her head up and kissed him on the cheek. He felt a wave of heat flush through his body, the ghost of her lips lingering on his face even after she pulled away. Adrian forgot how to talk. Not trusting himself not to stutter, he swallowed heavily and nodded mutely at her, blushing harder when he saw that her cheeks were pink as well. He almost tripped on his way out the door.

When he stepped outside, his heart was still racing. He stood in the middle of the hallway for a long time, grinning like an idiot.

This girl was going to kill him someday.


End file.
